Real-world limits, art, and commerce (Destiny)

by SonofMacPhisto , Monday, March 23, 2015, 16:07 (3354 days ago) @ Kermit

I read a lot of things over and over on this forum. If Cody has x amount of money, he could make a better game. If only Destiny were more like Wargame, it would live up to its promise. Destiny is boring. Destiny is repetitive. If only Destiny had theater or forge mode or custom games, it would be awesome. The investment system is the root of all evil. This post aims to respond to many of these points as concisely as possible.

Rich Cody

Cody could make a better game in his dreams, and I bet he does dream about it. Maybe he could even do it, but I doubt he could make a better AAA game. In part because money isn’t enough to attract the talent needed. They would have to relocate to LA or wherever and dedicate years to a project led by Cody who? Cody may consider himself brilliant when it comes to understanding what makes games great, but even if he did have the vision and could attract the necessary talent, does he have the wherewithal to deal with all the crap big developers have to deal with in the AAA space?

Wargame does Destiny right

Well, if you don’t mind your game being butt-ugly. There is nothing about Wargame that appeals to me aesthetically. The man hours involved in developing content for Destiny is exponentially higher, I bet, and it shows. Would Destiny be Destiny if it wasn’t expansive and weren’t jaw-dropping gorgeous? Not to me. That said, Bungie has never struck me as a studio that didn’t pay attention to what others are doing. They remind me of Apple. They often take from others, and perfect it.

Destiny should have what Halo 3 had

Launch day I played with a long-time Bungie veteran. The one thing he kept repeating was “This is the foundation—like Halo 1. We have a lot of work to do.” Theater mode and Forge are what I call perpetual promotion machines. They are fantastic in terms of adding longevity to game. I think we’ll see these kinds of features as the franchise matures. Maybe Bungie hasn't done what some would want since launch, but the amount of changes they’ve introduced is much more than we’ve seen from them before. It’s more than enough to convince me that they mean it when they say the game will evolve.

The investment system ruins a good game

Yes, it does, if you let it. But consider that you are Bungie, and you’re on top of the online gaming heap after Halo 2—for years. The money guys love longevity, and if there’s one thing that’s true, it’s that money matters in the AAA space more than ever because more pixels cost more. With each iteration of Halo, though, people played less and less. What do you do? There are ethical questions about Skinner boxes, and I won’t make a full-throated defense of Destiny’s investment system, especially in terms of its effect on people with addictive personalities, but Bungie already had a reputation for making addictive games. Are investment systems evil, the equivalent of adding nicotine to cigarettes? I don’t know, but there is another way of thinking about it. What if the core gameplay is as fun as ever, but what if, in addition to that, you have drops that are coveted and that provide another way that the game can be played differently, over time. What if the game offered a rich set of tools that changed over time, and experimenting with elements provided by these tools added longevity. Providing this kind of content regularly is doable, whereas providing new environments of Destiny’s quality is not. I think Destiny is Bungie trying to find a way, in today gaming market, to provide a platform where they can grow their product consistently and achieve their artistic goals over a long time horizon, while keeping the numbers high enough to keep the money guys interested in order the finance the whole thing.

A special word about custom games

The lack of this truly hurts Destiny and is the biggest casualty of the investment system. The calculation was probably made out of simplicity. Loot drops have to be offered for every activity, and to not have them broke the model on some level. I think that this will change as the game evolves, and certainly Bungie has witnessed the special fun that can be had when you play against your friends. I look forward to this feature almost as much as theater mode, but the latter is what I really would love. My favorite Halo metagame was always being a war correspondent.

Anyway, I remain hopeful about what Destiny can become, and I'm still enjoying the heck out of it.

Kermit

Good post, Kerm. (And greetings from Cleveland, Ohio! We made it back!)

Games are hard, man. Just track the life of a title like Mass Effect, or if you want to keep it in-house, Halo 1, 2, 3, ODST, Reach, and now Destiny. They all build on what was there before, but the balance is really tough and sometimes stuff falls through cracks.

Though, the fact Destiny is so gorgeous and plays SO well (Titanfall level good), I'd say it's got a promising future.

And best of all, plenty of fun to have until then.